Amer - gialloesque film from Belgium, in which images speak more than a thousand words. You need to pay attention when you are watching this film. There is almost no dialogue, so you have to focus on what you see in order to get an idea of what the filmmakers are trying to convey. The story itself is not very spectacular per se, it's not a straightforward plot in any way. What you get to see are four episodes from the life of a woman: one in childhood, one in puberty and two in adulthood. It's not gialloesque in it's plot therefore: there is no mystery in which you have to guess what happened and who did it. All that becomes pretty clear as long as you just watch this. It's gialloesqueness comes from the way it is made: shots of close up eyes, the use of colour to express emotions, and there is even a person wearing black leather gloves and holding a razorblade. Music didn't strike me as exceptional, but atmosphere is very nice overall. You have to get into it for a bit, but then you can lose yourself in the (limited) world of Ana, the main character. Acting is strong, also because the cast has to rely on expression instead of dialogue. I enjoyed this one, it's not horror and it only has some thriller elements in the final scenes, but if you are a fan of Italo you will enjoy this one too.

Bloodstone: Subspecies II - this film stays in stark contrast to Amer. In this film, you don't really have to pay attention, or think about what you see. It's a pretty simple plot which sequels part one in a logical way (except for the revival of Radu which is very much over the top with the two stopmotion midget monsters which are Charles Band's trademark). Nichelle from part one escapes from Radu's castle, tsaking the bloodstone with her. On the run, she has to cope with her growing thirst for blood while Radu tries to recapture the girl and more importantly, the bloodstone. Effects are rather cheesy in this one and acting is what you might expect even a little above it (although the Romanian officials do everything to show you that they can overact). It was a simple and fun ride, with an ending already announcing part three which is on the to watch list here.

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things - pretty weird slasher from 1971. Paul and Stanley are both on the run for the law. Paul is the criminal mastermind and also the most violent guy, Stanley is rather a big child, thinking more about doing drugs and chasing women than about hiding from the police. Paul dresses up as Aunt Martha, a fictional family relation of Stanley, to not be recognised in the streets. Meanwhile, Stanley just lives it off and therefore puts them both in danger. This enrages Paul, as he has to kill several people because they otherwise might tell the police about him. It's atmosphere is very late 60s, with hippies and similar people tripping throughout their scenes. The clothing and haircuts are also very typical of this age, and that is all very nice of course, but the story is lacking a bit. You don't really get to know what Paul's longterm plans are, just that he has to deal with the very obnoxious Stanley, more than he has to deal with the police. The kills are offscreen and when they are onscreen, the colours are inverted like on a negative so you don't get to see lots of blood. The ending was a tad anticlimactic. Well, like I said: a bit of a weird film.

The Windmill Massacre - the guy who produced Frankenstein's Army directed this one, and this is yet another nice horror with a classic feeling from the Netherlands. The story begins in Amsterdam, where Jennifer, an Australian girl who is on the run for the law, joins a tourist bustour thorugh Holland, to see the windmills. The tourguide, Abe, tells them a story of a miller who sold his soul to the devil so his mill would turn even without any wind. When the bus breaks down and nobody has a signal for their cellphones (hardly realistic in the Netherlands btw, but who cares), Jennifer and one of the other tourists head out to get help in a nearby mill, while the others try to make themselves comfortable in a deserted cabin close by. When he gets killed and Jennifer returns to tell the group, she is a suspect in the eyes of part of the group, not in the least because she takes medicine against hallucinations. But with her being strapped down, others keep disappearing, so someone or something is at work in the mill, is it maybe that evil miller from the legend? Atmosphere is quite OK, acting is also quite good: the international cast is a nice idea and not farfetched when you check the storyline. Effects are great although some of them scream "fake blood" and "props" but I love that, so no problem for me there. The kills are not original everytime, but some of them are quite well thought out. I had good fun and if you want to see a slasher, especially if it's a no-no9nsense one, then you can go for this one for sure. Recommended.

Creature - this is one of many films which have this title. This is the 1985 (1984 according to the end credits) scifi flick starring Klaus Kinski. Thee DVD I have didn't want to play i my DVD player so I resorted to spin it in my PC instead. The quiality of both image and sound are on VHS levels, so in the beginning of the movie I had trouble finding out what it was all about. I saw a lot of people dressed in spacesuits walking around rubble. Note: the film consists for the most part of these scenes, so if you hate seeing people do that, skip this film. In the rubble, the spacesuitpeople find a canister containing a monster and they wanna take a picture of it, but then the beast awakens and eats both of them. Or something like that at least, and now a new team has to be sent in to redeem as much as possible (there is some corporate drive behind it with profit and all, so it sounds a bit logical what they are doing, as long as money is the most important thing in your life). The creature is a cool lookig monster and it can turn people into it's minions by pasting something alien on their backs, as we have seen before in other films. Still, it's a cool trick and the monster uses it quite some times until the spaceteam finds a way to solve this problem once and for all. I had fun, but this is not a must see scifi. If you are into scifi however, or if you like 80s films with monsters, then this is a safe bet.

The Curse of Frankenstein - take-number-I-don't-know-which-one of the classic Shelley story. Hammer with of course Christopher Lee (as the monster) and Peter Cushing (as Dr. Frankenstein). Atmosphere is OK-ish, not as good as in other Hammers though. In this version, there is a large role reserved for Dr. Frankenstein's lifelong friend Paul Krempe, he is the conscientious one of the two scientists working on reviving dead organisms. When he thinks Victor is going too far, he tries to stop him but as we all know, Victor won't be blocked by even his best friend to achieve success in his life's work. He doesn't see the cost, however. Acting is good, the female characters are a bit stereotypical though. Effects are what you might expect: nothing too special. I'd say this is a nice watch but there are better classics out there if you ask me.

Reclusion - aka Door to the Other Side. Tim loses his wife and daughter and decades later he suddenly doesn't want to go out anymore. He leads a reclusive lifestyle until his newly arrived neighbours are starting to befriend him. Several doctors and other specialists look at the case of Tim, but they can't figure out what's wrong with him. Tim has relapses at night in which he doesn't breathe and he always comes out of them totally unharmed. Slowly but steadily this film unrvels the plot. Problem is, that it takes too long to do so and in the meantime it is all very boring. Acting is nice, but man, I was bored! The ending makes up for it a little bit, there was some nice twist to it and also a surprise which I didn't understand

Spoiler:

why would Tim's daughter finally kill him by putting the pillow on his face? Was he a killer after all who had murdered his wife? If so, was everything supernatural "only in his mind"? Ort was it symbolising the evil he had done to his own family?

If the latter is the case, then it is actually quite nice. But since I'm not sure, and the rest of the film was so boring, I can't give this the benefit of the doubt.

XX - bunch of girls got together to make this film so it became an anthology of four stories. First one "The Box", was creepy and because you don't get to know much it stays creepy until the end, very well done. Even though the plot was very illogical, the creepiness was the most important thing. The second one "Birthday Party" was not so much horror but black comedy. I laughed out loud and it was great fun! Third one "Don't Fall" was actually a bit too short for my taste, it was over before I realised it. Nice monster, though. Last one "Her Only Living Son" was a bit predictable, but well acted and pretty OK overall. So I had a good time watching this, and I wanna see more of especially the first two directors. Recommended.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe - one evening, with a storm being precited to break out later that night, a corpse is being brought into a morgue where a father and a son are the coroners. The sheriff needs a cause of death before the morning, so the father decides to start rightaway and although his son had planned to have a night ut with his girlfriend, he changes plans and stays on to herlp out his dad. At first it seems like nothing out of the ordinary, but bit by bit they discover that there is something really special about Jane Doe. She has peat under her nails, she has burnt organs but on the outside she is unharmed, etc, etc. They slowly uncover the mystery around the identity of the girl, and when they are sure about what's going on, it is too late for them. I won't spoil why that is, but I can assure you that if you like horror, you will be entertained. Although almost the entire film plays out inside the old morgue, it keeps you interested by the mystery of Jane Doe, and everything else in the film just helps it along a bit furhter: good acting, good effects, nice atmosphere and great ending. There was a short scene in the beginning which got explained in those final scenes, very nice

Spoiler:

the family pictures in front of the morgue portray the previous owners who probably had met the same fate by Jane Doe

One of the better films I have seen recently: recommended!

The Girl With All The Gifts - this film centers around Melanie, a highly intelligent girl who is also a so called "Hungry": a nickname for something zombie-like which lives in great numbers in the postapocalyptic world. She goes wild and wants to eat when she smells flesh, human or not. Therefore everyone involved in handling her is wearing blocker gel, to stop the smell. Melanie lives on a military base with a bunch of kids like herself and she is being educated even further by Ms. Justineau. Melanie is of great importance to Dr Cadlwell who is researching a vaccine against the disease of the Hungries. Melanie loves Justineau, and distrusts and/or hates everyone else. One day the base is being overrun by a horde of Hungries and the survivors have to flee. Now an odyssea begins on which every traveller has his own agenda. Some great acting, effects are nice and there are few plotholes, which made this a nice and entertaining ride. Not the best I have seen in this subgenre, but certainly not a waste of time.

The Earth Dies Screaming - 1964 black and white scifi flick in which a group of peole get together in a hotel in England after aliens attacked the earth and killed almost all human beings. Together they have to find out how to survive, but they encounter several problems: internal struggling in the group, a woman about to give birth and last but not least the robots controlled by the aliens roaming the earth and hunting down survivors. It's not a very spectacular film, there are better scifis out there and some of them are even older, so age is no excuse. Acting is OK for some and not so good for other members of the cast: the latter seem to act like in a school play. Overall this was mediocre, I don't think I'm gonna watch it again.

The Bornless Ones - cliche film about demonic possession, with ghostlike figures haunting a house which was recently bought by a couple, of whom the female wants to be close to her disabled brother who is gonna live in an institute nearby. this, in short, is the film. Acting is so so, all characters of course have dark secrets, which are sometimes very predictable and sometimes a little less so. Effects are OK, the cgi ghosts outside were ugly but the use of it was not over the top, the gore effects were mostly not cgi so that was OK. But the film itself was a bit boring. You have seen this a thousand, no, a million times before. So there is nothing new to enjoy and unless you really don't care about that this might entertain you a bit. I think I'll forget about this film soon.

Stake Land II - a sequel that didn't have to be made. The setting is teh same as in part one: I felt a high Mad Max vibe while watching this time, the world really felt like in a postapocalyptic movie and therfore the whole vampire thing was a bit pushed back, it didn't seem to be very important. The story is not a very interesting one: Martin wants to find Mister again and when he does they fight vampires again, like in part one. This is too much of a repetition, so that's why I think this movie is a bit superfluous. Acting is OK-ish, but the vampires act ridiculous: the so called berserkers are more like ogres and that makes the whole "there are different species of vampires" too much fantasy for me. Where I thought that Stake Land tried something new and was somewhat successfull at that, this film just walks the same path and because it's not new anymore everything falls flat in my eyes. Stick with part one.

VooDoo - this film manages to run for 83 minutes and never really tell a story. There is a girl from New Orleans staying over at her cousin's in LA. They visit the tourist highlights and have a party, etc. In the meantime they get hit on by a bunch of guy who have an astounding lack of musical talent. Check the scene where the guy with the guitar says "Hey listen, I just wrote this" and then starts groping the instruments and muffling something: and be amazed. The girl has some relational troubles and a woman with supernatural powers is hunting her because the girl slept with her husband. So after hearing strange noises and freaking out, she ends up in hell. Yeah, why not? The following ~30 minutes she is in hell and gets tortured both physically and mentally. The portrayal of hell is quite nicely done, but Im still in the dark as of why the filmmakers wanted to do this. And then there is the ending which is also quite stupid, totally fitting the rest of the film. Wow, what a bag of garbage this was. Only for bad moviefans, keep the ffwd button close!

Shadowzone - scifi flick with Louise Fletcher as Dr Erhart, a scientist workig in an underground secret facility, studying dream sequences by manipulating the brain of human test subjects. Cpt Hickock is sent to the facility when one person dies in the process and Hickock is shocked by seeing the body which looks like it exploded. After he gets a lot of explanation on how the research is done, he tries to investigate as to why the test person died such a horrific death. Upon recreating the circumstances, the test person goes berserk and now also other people in the facility meet their untimely deaths. It turns out that by creating the extreme circumstances, they allow something alien to port over to this world and it has begun a killing spree. The last test person (a very well shaped woman) is their only hope to really find the solution for all of this before they all get killed. Acting is so so, the crazy doctor played by James Hong takes the cake when it comes to cheesiness. The effects are great, the gore is really nice, one of the best features in this film. Overall I had some good B-ffilm fun, recommended for bad moviefans!

The Creeps - Anna Quarrels is a librarian who is confronted with the theft of the first edition of the Frankenstein book. In order to get it back, she hires a private eye which is the cheapest she could find and you will soon know why: he is not the best to put it mildly. So when the first edition of Dracula is stolen by the same man, they follow him to his lab and find out hwat he has planned: creating living versions of Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the mummy and the werewolf. While he is trying to ddo so, Anna and the detective take out the books and therefore the monsters come out as midgets. They still are monsters though, so they start to terrorize the town. Now Anna and the detectove havee to find a way to destroy them and put them bakc into the books. Very weird story, the main attraction of this film feels like a 1920s carnival: watching midgets perform. Just because of this weirdness you might sit through this film, because the rest is qyite bad. The acting, the dialogue, it doesn't make much sense and the make up job of the dwarf people is not very successfuill either. Only for bad moviefans I'd say.

The Suffering - Henry Dawles is hired as a property appraiser by Mr Remiel, who lives in a remote mansion in the forest. Upn arrival, a series of conversations between Henry and Mr Remiel starts, and inbetween Henry has to do his job. He is confronted by things from his past, and also by some shocking discoveries he makes while he is prowling around the different buildings on Remiel's property. He wants out, but Remiel convicnes him to stay for one more night, and then Henry finds out what this was all about to begin with. OK mystery, pretty slow paced, but not (far) past the annoying level. The outcome has a strong vibe of

Spoiler:

Sixth Sense

and although I was a tad late to find out, you might not be surprised at all that this movie is going down that road. Acting is OK, atmosphere is nice, the mansion is a cool location and the buildings next to it really fit in. The most annoying thing in this film is when they reveal the plot they feel the need to moralise a lot and it almost turns into

Spoiler:

christian propaganda about how you have to live a good life

This was a major drawback for me and costs the film several points in it's final score. If you can swallow this, you might have a good time watching it. The mystery is nice and remains a mystery very long, so if you like that: go for it.

Doctor Mordrid - Jeffrey Combs plays an alien wizard fighting a different alien wizard. They were raised and educated simultaneously, but one (Kabal) chose the evil path and the other (Mordrid) the good one. Now it's Mordid's task to prevent Kabal from destroying the earth and this rang a lot of Superman IV bells to me, with Kabal looking a bit like Nuclear Man and the plot being somewhat the same. Knowing Full Moon, it might even be a blatant rip-off, but I read soemthing about this being based on a Marvel comic named Dr Strange, so maybe all those superheroes just look and act alike, who knows. We get capes, we get invisibility, we get shapeshifting and teleporting, it's all very nice and Band low budget-like. I had great fun, the effects made me laugh but they were also very charming and after the 75 minutes were over I had a nice feeling about this scifi nonsense. So give it a spin if you wanna see early 90s low budget scifi with Band effects. Bad moviefans should watch it for sure.

2307 Winter's Dream - in a postapocalyptic world where everything has frozen on the surface, humanity lives underground and produces humanoids top aid them in production and stuff. Commander Bishop, living a drug induced existence because of the trauma he endured after his wife's death, is being re-recruited into the elite unit called Spartan 7. He must find the leaser of yet another humanoid insurgence and the incentive for him is that he might find his daughter by doing so. So, together with a team of die hard combatants, Bishop travels through the ice looking for Ash, the humanoid ringleader. After several fights, the search takes a dramatic turn which is btw pretty predictable, especially if you have seen films such as The Running Man. Apart from that, it has a heavy Alien-vibe, especially because of the weaponry, the search and the team. This film is average, but the main character annoyed the hell out of me, his hoarse voice-overs are way too "produced" and gimmicky, they make the film almost laughable and I don't think that was intended. I would have liked to see more of the underground lifestyle instead of more of the snowy desert, which looked quite boring. Acting was not too bad, but some of the characters were hard to understand, like the big black guy and the Asian man. Oh, btw: that team composition was almost perfect in light of minority policy, there was a black guy, an Asian guy, the leader was Hispanic, there was a white guy and a woman. Only thing was that she read Mein kampf all the time, lol. I think I won't remember a lot of this movie for long. Watch it if you like the setting as described.

Scar - a 2007 slasher of which I have been in doubt whether to buy it or not for quite some time. Since there was this rip out recently, I thought I'd watch it first and I'm glad I did. I'm not gonna buy it. Whereas I usually have lkot of fun and then proceed to grab the DVD for my collection, this one isn't worth it. It is cliche, predictable and uninnovative. The killer is meh and although acting is OK-ish, this film never succeeded in interesting me. Forgettable, so I recommend you to pick a different slasher if you are in for one.

Rojo Sangre - Paul Naschy in one of his last roles, plays Pablo Thevenet, a washed up actor of pensioner's age. Divorced and mourning the death of his daughter, he struggles with his lost fame, facing both bankruptcy and oblivion. Visiting one audition ater another, being humiliated by the young and new stars of cinema, he gets angrier everyday. By a twist of fate he ends up working in an exclusive club called Pandora: he is a living statue there, just outside the door, but because it pays extremely well, he accepts the job. Still, inside his anger grows and turns into revenge: not only the new starlets without any talent who take up all jobs are now his target, but also the people who are to blame for his daughter's death. Dressed up as characters like Jack the Ripper, he starts a killing spree that goes to extremes. Slow starter, but man what did this film enjoy me thoroughly! Acting is top notch, atmosphere is gripping and cinematography is really nice, although after a few scenechanges they go a bit out of control on those. Still, highly recommended. Go see this not so well known film!

The Day Time Ended - when you see the cover of this movie you might think it's a Harryhausen film from the 50s, but it's actually twenty years younger. On the backside they printed the five most spectacular scenes, so you can get an idea of what this will bring. A family moved out of the city into the desert to find some peace and quiet, but for some reason there are aliens hunting each other and they put a timewarp on the house (or so much I gathered). There are good and bad aliens, there are man-in-monstersuits and there are sometimes a little misplaced light effects to make a small pyramid glow. Oh, and there are UFO's and a little flying disintegrator thingy which flies thorugh their house, pretty dangerous. There is a young girl who made friends with the good aliens and the rest of the family tries to fight off the bad aliens and the monsters. It's all a bit of a mess, but overall I had good mindless fun and I can recommend this to bad moviefans, for the effects mostly.

Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies - zombiecomedy playing in the Alps. When a snowboarders team loses a sponsor contract because of a stunt one of them played, they get stuck on the top of a mountain in "end of the season" night. At the same time, two native guys try to convince a Russian investor to invest in their new snowmaking machine. Upon demonstrating the machine, they accidenally shower him with the chemical which makes the snow and he slowly turns into a zombie. Soon after, the entire bar (the only one open at the time) is filled with the living dead. The snowmakers and the snowboarders now both have to do everything to survive. Funny zombiecomedy with good enough effects, quite some budget I guess (the helicopter scene was something) and OK acting. Fun fact: there are zero zombies in actual lederhosen. Mindless fun, never scary but who cares.

Worry Dolls - title sounded familiar, as it resembles "Dangerous Worry Dolls" pretty much. But while that one was classical Full Moon nonsense, this one started out a bit pretentious. A girl in a deserted factory building frees herself from captivity and then the serial killer who tied her up in there comes after her. He has a box with small dolls inside of it and he worhips them. After he gets taken out and the police takes this box to the station, an old woman is asking for it: she wants it back. She can come by the next day, so tells the detective and of course in the meantime the box gets emptied by his daughter, who now, unknowingly, is spreading the curse of these little dolls to different people. These people become violent and kill others who are nearby. When the detective is on these cases, he slowly but steadily finds out what relates them, and then starts to search for the dolls. In the first bit this film is pretty OK-ish, but after that it turns out that the police is really extremely dumb. For example: when it is the next day and the old woman doesn't show up asking for the dolls, the police never wonders why that happens and they find out about the dolls missing a few days later. Other example: when they are gonna pick up all dolls, which by now is of extreme importance, they all of a sudden dont go together anymore, and give a "possessed guy" the chance to kill off one of them pretty easily. This was so mindboggling that I almost quit watching, but as you know me I always stay through to the end but it didn't get explained and it didn't get any better. The ending is a bit rushed, but it did the job. Can't really recommend this, because it is too good for bad moviefans and too bad for serious moviefans.

The Void - a nice surprise! I went in without reading up on it so I got throw into the storyline completely blank. The film opens with a guy running away from a house where several people lay dead and he runs into a policeman who first think he has t deal with a drunk teenager, but sokn finds out that the guy is wounded. So he takes him to the nearby hospital, which is about to move location, so not everything is still in stock, like certain medical supplies. The nurse helping the policeman iss his wife, and she and her colleagues deal with the moving situation, the new patient, a guy sick in bed and a young girl being pregnant visitng the hospital with her grandpa as she is about to give birth. It doesn't take long before all sorts of things are starting to happen: mysterious people outside the hospital prevent the people inside from leaving, they slash away with their big knies at anyone who tries; an alien-like creature bursts out of one of the people inside the hospital and starts infecting others; the guys who were killing at the house from the opening scene invade the hospital; the birth is starting up, etc etc. A very extreme and stressful situation, in which the policemand and his wife the nurse have to find a way to not lose it entirely and come out of it all alive. Monsters and other effects are practical, a huge plus in my book. Acting is pretty good, especially by the main characters. If you like Carpenter, Barker, Cronenberg and/or Lovecraft then this one is a must see. Highly recommended!

Ice Sharks - title implies a nonsensical monsterflick with impossible sharks and that is indeed what you get. While the script tries to give a nice explanation for the sharks appearing by elaborating a bit on global warmth, the nonsense wins because the film plays supposedly on Ross Island (you can see this on a map a few times in the film), which is in the Antarctic, while we can see Inuit, polar bears and the Greenland shark: all Arctic organisms. So much for realism, lol. The sharks can penetrate ice with their finns, they even swim inside the research station at a certain point. Some scientists insist on dying, seeing what choices they make "I want to go into the water" "Are you sure? It's not entirely necessary" "No, I want to go, it's what I owe to (fill in name)" and then he or she gets eaten of course. Ugly cgi completes this film. Only watch this if you are in for it.

Don't Kill It - action starts almost rightaway: a hunter and his dog find a little golden box and the dog is acting strange. At first it just sytares in the diustance and rthen it sudenly attacks the hunter who kills it. Now the hunter starts feeling a bit dizzy and then his eyes turn black and he runs home screaming. When he is home he murders his family and then proceeds to the neighbour's house where he continues until he is killed by the man of the house. Who in turn starts feeling dizzy, etc. After a while you will see a female FBI agent meeting up with Dolph Lundgren who plays a cool, western-like demonhunter. This Jebediah Woodley meets a lot of disbelief, but it doesn't take long before the town is forced to follow his guidance. The best advice: don't kill it, which makes the hunt pretty tiresome, but for us audience it gives something to laugh about. Lots of gore, a big pile of dead bodies and some minor demonic action make up the contents of this film. Lundgren does what he does best at this age: be cool and twist some arms here and there. I had fun, I guess this is a safe bet on enjoying yourself for some 80 minutes.

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